Deleted by poster. Think this is going to go down the slippery political slope, at least my original comments did!

Oh NO!!....the reason I posted the historical link was to show how names are coined. Interesting that Hoover liked using the word depression because it did not sound as bad as PANIC!!

Well, at least you can take a pill for depression.

I went through the forest fires in Washington state in 1994. Names were bandied about on how to name the fires to get their significance across to the public. Little did we know that a few years later those "horrific" fires would be the new normal!

Deleted by poster. Think this is going to go down the slippery political slope, at least my original comments did!

Of course it could do that. But it need not get nasty or silly. If we can limit our comments and simply exchange well written information or articles on the subject from all sides it could be educational and that is worth a lot.

How about "The Great Housing Bubble", or thinking of tulips, "The Great Housing Mania"or something with a little more modern flavor "Ponzi House", or thinking of game shows, "You Bet Your House", or in the more modern vernacular "Sumthin for nothin - NOT", or if you want something campy, "Holy Derivitive Batman", then there's the Homer Simpson version, "Doh!".

And now we can start calling it the Great Ripoff. The redistribution of income from the wealthy to the poor via taxes is easy to see, but the redistribution from the masses to the uber-wealthy is complicated and thus easily ignored. Here is one example just starting to happen, A Huge Housing Bargain -- But NOT for You. This kind of stuff is so depressing to me, not because I want or need the wealth, but because it is so hurtful to a fair (I did not say equal) distribution of wealth and income.

Many names have been bandied about, but the one that resonated most with me was "Credit Bubble" because that seems to be the one thing that separated this current mess from the rest. Credit requirements were lowered until anyone with or without breath qualified for no-down-payment mortgages.

I do a lot of reading on this lately, and one site that I frequent collects all sorts of articles, mostly bearish lately. The articles have a tendency to be bombastic, perhaps over-the-top, but I like hearing all sides.

ZeroHedge.com

This site and their articles were one of many which helped convince me to move a lot of $ into physical gold a few months ago. So far I don't regret it...

Also, some are wondering why inflation has not gone up much more than it has given the amounts of money the FED has been injecting into the economy. One reason is that if the inflation figures included the the prices of stocks, bonds and commodities on financial markets (which they don't) then we would be seeing even higher inflation figures...rather shortsighted that they aren't included.

Precisely! Student loans, the next 'bubble to burst', or the next 'manufactured crisis' to give way. After years of nudging college kids to take out student loans, we've now got thousands of college graduates in debt up to their eyeballs with no prospect of a job that pays worth a darn and no means with which to repay their loans.

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. ~~~ George Orwell

Looks like the current favorite is the "Great Recession". Except according to economic definition this recession ended sometime ago. Well, at least it did for the banks and the corporations!!

A new one, which I like, but does not seem to gained much favor is "The Lesser Depression".

Others are the "Credit Crunch". Sounds like a New York city candy bar to me.

The "Global Financial Crises". I kinda like that one, however, it removes the pain and suffering people are feeling as a result of the financial crises. It sort of implies that only the banks are suffering.

The last one is the "Great Reset" that refers to the decline in living standards worldwide for most people. That sounds like it is on the right path for a term to describe the past few years, but it is probably not very descriptive to most people.

It took a few years for the term "Great Depression" to come into general use. I suspect if there is term that gets at the job loss in this economic event it would probably become the description of choice.

When I go to the local grease pit for breakfast from time to time, the regulars and they are oldtimers always ask me the same thing.
So how are you making it with your farm in THIS MESS THE COUNTRY IS IN. I then start asking them how they have made it through the down turns in the economy they have experienced. I learn something new everytime I am there.
So I refer to it as The Mess this country is in.

"The European Central Bank -- along with the Fed, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank -- announced a coordinated plan to pump dollars into Europe's financial system."

Lets call it "Here We Go Again." Injecting more money into the system, when liquidity is not the problem, debt is the problem. But, of course, more liquidity helps to keep the "balls (debt) in the air" and postpone the date when all the balls come crashing down - debt that can't be repaid. (Perhaps they are thinking if we postpone the day of reckoning long enough, God will intervene with another miracle and pay for our debt/sins once again? OK, I know, a stupid idea, but given the stupidity of more liquidity what do you expect from me?)

I will be the first to admit that banking, especially international banking is mighty complex economics. And I will also be the first to admit that fast-moving-big-money speculators/managers will earn some nice bonuses playing with the extra hundreds of billions of dollars from these central banks.

The reasoning behind the injection:

"European banks have seen outflows of U.S. dollars as U.S. financial institutions and money market accounts have scaled back exposure to European banks amid fears over the institutions' exposure to a Greek debt default or another troubled EU member nation."

So the private market intelligence decides it is too dangerous to buy European debt and thus the Fed etc. will buy it! More toxic assets on the Fed's balance sheet. Oh my.

But maybe there is another reason for the Fed to do this? And here it is:

"Analysts say that any offer of aid to European banks is yet another tool the Federal Reserve has to aid the ailing U.S. economy. European banks need dollars to fund loans to U.S. companies and to European corporations with offices in the United States."

Say what?! dollars to fund loans to U.S. companies ??? What are these people smoking? The US corporate and financial system is awash in dollars. It is not the absence of little green pieces of paper in the hands of banks and corporations that is the problem. It is the absence of those little green pieces of paper in the hands of hundreds of millions of people (thousands of millions worldwide) who are in debt up to and past their ears that is the problem. It is as simple as that.

And just one more inane quote,

"Given how weak the U.S. economy is right now, we think the Fed is cognizant of the spillover risks from a European banking crisis," wrote Win Thin, global head of emerging markets strategy at Brown Brothers Harriman in a research note. "Providing dollar funding appears to be a low cost option."

It is certainly an option, but not a solution. And low cost? I don't think the analysts has a clue what the cost will be in the future when that many more "balls" come crashing down. Nobody does.

"The European Central Bank -- along with the Fed, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank -- announced a coordinated plan to pump dollars into Europe's financial system."

Lets call it "Here We Go Again."

Yup, "Here we Go Again." Remember when this type of article, Over There Is Over Here was in the news about once a week, every week in 2009, explaining how the financial/banking experts (are there any?!) got it so wrong. So those experts are at it again (they never really stopped).

I guess shipping dollars to Europe is the Fed's attempt to get on the "Global Trade" bandwagon! I thought the Fed had limited responsibilities, but once again they will do just about anything to postpone the suffering due the big-money lenders when all this toxic debt is defaulted on. Of course the prolonged suffering of the unemployed/underemployed is a necessary cost. And besides, the big-money players know that many of those unemployed have bad employment records and they have low expectations anyway and so they are used to being hungry and besides....

So "operation twist" is suppose to lower long term interest rates and then people will want to borrow more money and banks are suppose to loan out more money. Say What? "...banks are suppose to loan out more money?" At lower interest rates? And these Fed officials are supposedly America's brightest economists? Oh my!

We could call it confusing reporting. Here is one example from today that seems to be good news:

Orders for U.S. capital goods climbed in August by the most in three months, a sign business investment continues to support the recovery. Bookings for goods like computers and communications gear, excluding military hardware and aircraft, climbed 1.1 percent, the most since May, a Commerce Department report showed today in Washington. Demand for all durable goods dropped 0.1 percent, less than forecast.

Well is this good news or not? (Not!) Does it support the recovery or not? (Not!) But it sure sounds like good news.

Here is a different news source that reports the same info a bit more clearly (or honestly?):

Contributing to uncertainty today was another sign of weakness in the U.S. economy. The Commerce Department said durable-goods orders dipped 0.1% in August. Economists had expected a gain of 0.2%. Orders, excluding transportation, also fell by 0.1%. August's declines compare to growth of 4.1% and 0.7%, respectively, in June and July. That was the bad news. The good news, Bloomberg News noted, was that bookings for goods like computers and communications gear, excluding military hardware and aircraft, climbed 1.1%. That was the most since May.

And yet even with this news source, you are left wondering. How good is it if computers and communications are up but over all durable goods fell? And then there is that cute little proviso "excluding military hardware and aircraft." I do get tired of these kinds of provisos...but here is mine:

This is from one article I read today, and we could call it numbers dyslexia:

American employers added more workers in September than forecast and figures for the prior two months were revised higher, easing concern the economy is tipping into another recession.

Payrolls rose by 103,000 after a 57,000 gain in August, the Labor Department said today in Washington. The median forecast in a Bloomberg News survey of economists called for an increase of 60,000. The figures reflected the end of a strike at Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) that brought 45,000 people back to work.

So why isn't the stock market continuing its 3-day celebration? Almost twice as many jobs as expected! And don't forget business profits are at all time highs (more on this in a second). Well lets take a closer look.

One economist I read had this to say about the jobs numbers:

The official unemployment rate (U3) remained at 9.1 percent, while the number of unemployed people actually grew to almost 14 million (13,992 thousand, seasonally adjusted).

The actual unemployment rate (U6, including people marginally attached to the labor force, plus those who are employed part time for economic reasons) grew to 16.5 percent (from 16.2 percent in August).

Non-farm jobs increased by 103,000 but this included the 45,000 striking Verizon employees who went back to work.

So 103,000 minus 45,000 equals 58,000 new jobs. Not much to celebrate when we need around 125,000 each month to keep up with population growth and thus growth in the labor force.

But what about those terrific business profits? Three factors explain most of it, and they are all temporary, due ironically to the downturn/recession we are in. All three are about decreasing the costs of production.

- Laying off the least efficient workers and increasing efficiency of the remaining workers.

- Business taxes are at the lowest in history as a percentage of revenues. (Thanks to government policies allowing this, which doesn't help the Federal deficit.)

- Large reduction in business investment spending; includes plant, equipment, research and development (who can blame them?)

In other words, those wonderful profits that many corporations are making and sitting on are temporary and are actually due to this horrible economy. But they can fool some analysts or more likely some analysts can fool YOU into thinking "Wow, if they can make profits like these, in this horrible economy, think how profits will go up in the future. Not!